{"id":13078,"date":"2025-09-20T17:04:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T21:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=13078"},"modified":"2025-09-30T22:34:40","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T02:34:40","slug":"afterburn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/09\/20\/afterburn\/","title":{"rendered":"Afterburn"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Afterburn<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Inaugural Entertainment\/Sci-Fi-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 106 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong bloody violence and language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: J.J. Perry\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Matt Johnson and Nimrod Antal\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Roque Banos\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jose David Montero\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 19, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Dave Bautista, Olga Kurylenko, Kristofer Hivju, Samuel L. Jackson, Eden Epstein, Daniel Bernhardt, Kevin Eldon, George Somner, Phil Zimmerman, Robert Holik.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0A single thought kept going through my mind as I watched the post-apocalyptic sci-fi actioner Afterburn<\/strong> this afternoon: \u201cThis is some silly s***!\u201d I knew it would be going in. It was a last-minute booking at my local multiplex. They\u2019re only showing it twice a day. Also, it\u2019s September. \u2018Tis the season for dump movies.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What I didn\u2019t expect from Afterburn<\/strong> was to be as entertained as I was. So help me, I actually liked it. It\u2019s like a throwback to all those cheap post-apocalyptic flicks that came out in the 80s only with more of a budget. The only thing missing is a has-been actor or two. I don\u2019t know about you, but I don\u2019t consider Samuel L. Jackson (Snakes on a Place) a has-been. He\u2019s still a star to me. The story is a mix of The Road Warrior, National Treasure and Inglorious Basterds. It has a goodly amount of graphic violence and plenty of action. It\u2019s the ideal movie for a Saturday matinee.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Afterburn <\/strong>is set in a bleak future where all technology was wiped out by a solar flare about ten years earlier. The world has descended into chaos. Food and fuel are scarce. Governments have been replaced by ruthless warlords like Volkov (Hivju, Game of Thrones), the villain of the piece. He rules with an iron fist executing anybody who dares defy him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The hero of Afterburn<\/strong> is Jake (Bautista, Guardians of the Galaxy), a loner who makes a living as a treasure hunter. He finds lost valuable objects. His dream is to fix his boat and live out his life sailing the oceans. His latest, and supposedly last, job involves him going to Paris to locate the Mona Lisa. A powerful rich guy named King August (Jackson) collects such items. It\u2019s a dangerous place to go and Jake doesn\u2019t really want to do it, but King convinces him to take the job.<\/p>\n

Once he gets there, he\u2019s to meet with his contact, a bad ass named Drea (Kurylenko, Quantum of Solace). She will help him locate the Mona Lisa while fighting off Volkov\u2019s men. He too wants it. It\u2019s a race to see who gets to it first. Of course, there\u2019s more riding on the mission than saving a valuable work of art.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Going into the weekend, I thought Afterburn <\/strong>would be the film I\u2019d like the least. It turns out I like it the best. It\u2019s not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination. It\u2019s a little longer than it needs to be. The acting isn\u2019t especially good. The plot is dumb. It\u2019s pure B-movie hokum! That\u2019s precisely why it works. Director J.J. Perry, reuniting with his Killer\u2019s Game star Bautista, serves up plenty of action and violence including a great scene involving a train, a bridge and explosives.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Bautista is a decent enough action star. He displays the same emotional range as Schwarzenegger in his early films. Hivju hams it up as the bad guy. Kurylenko is still easy on the eyes. Jackson gets to say his favorite two-word\/twelve-letter phrase at least once. Like I said, it\u2019s not great acting. It is, however, the level of acting the material requires.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I honestly don\u2019t have much more to say about Afterburn<\/strong>. What else can I say? It doesn\u2019t lend itself to deep analysis or interpretation. It is what it is, a dopey post-apocalyptic sci-fi actioner. I\u2019m actually surprised it got a theatrical release. Normally, a movie like this goes right to streaming platforms. I have a feeling it will get there soon enough. Save it for a Saturday afternoon. You won\u2019t be totally sorry, but you might owe your brain an apology afterwards.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Afterburn (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Inaugural Entertainment\/Sci-Fi-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 106 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong bloody violence and language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: J.J. Perry\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Matt Johnson and Nimrod Antal\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Roque Banos\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jose David Montero\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 19, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Dave Bautista, Olga Kurylenko, Kristofer Hivju, Samuel L. Jackson, Eden Epstein, Daniel Bernhardt, Kevin Eldon, George Somner, Phil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13079,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Afterburn-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C918&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13081,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13078\/revisions\/13081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}